narrative

The title to this sounds like an instructional, but I’m really asking a question.

I’ve seen character and novel boards on Pinterest from a lot of other authors, and thought it was a cool idea at first. That’s why I decided to make my own. I have two Pinterest boards just for my novels, TURQUOISEBLOOD and DANA (here’s DANA below for reference).

Let’s use TURQUOISEBLOOD as an example. The novel takes place in the mountain country of Rak, where an albino village girl named Kiri takes up with the rogue dragon Anya to solve a murder. Their journey takes them to Rak’s lowlands, royal court, and deep into the mountains. At the same time, we learn the story of Pristina, fighting to stop a civil war in Rak 200 years before Kiri’s birth.

Because of this, my Pinterest board has pins of mountains, dragons, white-haired girls, and lots of clothing. But it suggests nothing of the narrative of the story, that there’s a mystery, a parallel storyline, or even other characters. Because of the changing fashion in the areas Kiri and Anya travel to, the clothing styles don’t have any consistency to anyone but me.

These two boards don’t have many followers. Likewise, I find myself less interested in other writer’s story/character boards. If I haven’t read the book, or if it’s unpublished (TURQUOISEBLOOD will be out in 2015!) then it’s harder for me to enjoy these kinds of boards.

In order to improve mine (New Year’s Resolution time?), I’m going to try out some new things:

1) Create a better narrative by writing more description in the header and on the pins.

2) Reshuffle pins so they more closely follow events of the novel.

3) Find more ways to pin to these boards. After all, the more you pin the more followers you get!

What about you? Has anyone seen an example of a good story-Pinterest board? Let me know what you’ve seen/done before! And send me your name so I can follow you on Pinterest 🙂